Rich and creamy ice cream sandwiched between two homemade cookies has to be one of the most classic and best desserts of all time. I would even say they are right up there with apple pie a la mode. You can enjoy them all year round and change the flavors based on the season. Cinnamon ice cream in between chocolate, pecan oatmeal cookies is the perfect combination for the fall.
Heather with HH Desserts made some chocolate, pecan oatmeal cookies sprinkled with Margarita Himalayan Pink Salt for a photo shoot. They were simply divine and I had to make an eggless version for my son. I followed her suggestion of using the Margarita salt with lime zest as well as added some orange zest with sugar. The zest adds a complexity to the cookie and enhances all the flavors.
You are probably wondering why I add orange zest. The first reason is I grew up eating oatmeal cookies with orange slices. It is an old fashion style cookie my neighbor, Dot used to make and I wanted to share that bit of my childhood with my family.
The second reason is orange zest contains pectin and a unique flavonoid called Hesperidin. Both can help lower cholesterol and improve overall health. I have read orange zest may reduce cholesterol better than statins. There is not enough evidence since most people will not and cannot invest the enormous amount of money needed to conduct trials to determine if orange zest can indeed work as well or better than drugs. I asked a good friend who is a cardiologist for his thoughts and he said adding orange zest to your diet cannot hurt and may help prevent higher cholesterol but he would not recommend to his patients they stop using medicine that has been proven effective.
These cookies do not change their shape much so they need to be flattened with your hand or the back of a spoon. They are very soft and chewy and hold their shape well making them ideal for ice cream sandwiches. If you do not like chocolate chips, eliminate them. If these are going to school or you are serving them at a party, you may want to eliminate the pecans due to allergies. They even taste great as orange oatmeal cookies. Tweak to match your needs.
To make the eggless cinnamon ice cream, follow the vanilla bean ice cream recipe and add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon to compliment the spice in the cookies. The ice cream has more of a soft serve texture and melts quickly. It will not harden very much in the freezer so eat these ice cream sandwiches quickly. I am sure you will not mind at all!
If you do not want to bake, then here is a site to order small batch ice cream sandwiches. Nye’s makes several gourmet ice cream sandwiches like cranberry orange spice cookies with pumpkin ice cream. I will be making those soon!
I found Nye’s as well as many other amazing American Made companies on the Martha Stewart American Made awards contest. Thank you to all my subscribers, friends and family who have been voting for me and spreading the word about Back to Organic Fresh Herb Salts. I really appreciate it.
Directions
1) Allow 2 sticks or 1 cup of unsalted pasture butter to come to room temperature. Cream the butter with 1 cup of coconut palm sugar and 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract. Do this by hand. If you use a blender, the butter will heat too much and the cookies will spread. They will still be good but they’re better if you mix by hand. Plus, there is less to clean up!
2) Zest the orange over the bowl with 1 tablespoon of sugar to ensure you get all the healthy oils and then fold 1 tablespoon of sugar and zest into the creamed butter.
3) Then sift together 1 1/2 cups of unbleached all purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, 1/8 teaspoon ground clove, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. I recommend Hand Harvested Fleur de Sel or Margarita Himalayan Pink salt with a zest of lime.
4) Add 1 tablespoon of aluminum free baking soda to 1/4 cup of boiling water and stir until dissolved. Mix in the batter.
4) Fold in the 2 cups of rolled oats (preferably non GMO), the 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and 1/2 cup if chopped pecans if using them. Mix together. If you are not ready to bake them, then you can store the dough in your refrigerator. Shape into a log and wrap with parchment paper and then seal in a freezer safe bag without any air. Or, you can freeze it. Read the tip below if you plan to freeze them.
5) Use a spoon or cookie scooper to place a ball of dough onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Use a size 16 stainless steel portion scooper for very large cookies. Flatten the ball to be about 1/4″ thick. Sprinkle a pinch of orange zest sugar over the top or use Margarita Himalayan Salt. Cook in a preheated oven at 325 degrees convection for 8 minutes or 350 for 10 minutes. The cookies may look a little gooey but will continue to cook on the baking sheet.
6) Use a spoon or size 16 portion scoop to make sure the cookie and ice cream are roughly the same size. Flatten the ball into a disk shape with a spoon or cover with parchment and press down with your hand. The cinnamon ice cream will flatten very easily. If the ice cream is already melting, place in the freezer. Once the ice cream is solid again, sandwich it between two cookies. Take a big bite.
If you do not eat all of them, wrap them well with plastic and freeze.
Tip: Shape the cookie dough into balls and then freeze them on a cookie sheet so they retain their shape. When they are frozen, place the dough balls in freezer safe bags. This allows you to bake as many as they need and you can have freshly baked cookies within 15 minutes of a guest arriving. Enjoy!
Thank you and Credits:
HH Desserts for the inspiration to use Margarita Himalayan Pink Salt with zest of lime on chocolate, pecan oatmeal cookies.
Alice Park Photography for the professional photograph of the stack of cookies with a carafe of milk.
